From Fox News: A counterterrorism expert says that Iranian sleeper cells may be hiding “in plain sight,” waiting to strike rural areas in America.
Following strikes by the U.S. military on several Iranian nuclear sites on June 22, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin, stating there’s a heightened risk for Iranian-backed or domestic terrorism.
“The likelihood of violent extremists in the Homeland independently mobilizing to violence in response to the conflict would likely increase if Iranian leadership issued a religious ruling calling for retaliatory violence against targets in the Homeland,” stated the bulletin. “Iran also has a long-standing commitment to target US Government officials it views as responsible for the death of an Iranian military commander killed in January 2020.”
Following the U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has tamped up enforcement efforts targeted at Iranian illegal immigrants.
“Where these sleeper cells may be is in plain sight,” Jonathan Gilliam, a former FBI special agent with experience on terrorism task forces, told Fox News Digital. “And that’s the real terrifying part of this is that putting people in place, as we’ve seen over the past four years, everyone’s scrambling because certain amounts of people could come in here and get in here.”
Gilliam cited the Biden administration’s border policies, which he said gave Iranian illegal immigrants the chance to gain access to the U.S.
“They could even go to the border and say they [want to] seek asylum, and the Biden administration, instead of putting them into DHS housing or ICE housing and holding them there so they could have their first appearance. To be vetted and whether or not they get asylum,” he said.
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